Canandaigua puts the mobile’ in mobile home

For decades, Canandaigua’s north shore has been home to a pair of trailer parks. Not for much longer.

Philip Anselmo

Two-thirds of tenants in the two mobile-home parks on Lakeshore Drive have moved out since their landlord warned in August that he might close them.

The parks had been under scrutiny for a decade, at least since the 1997 reconstruction of Lakeshore Drive got people thinking of the potential for the lakefront property.

Now, David Genecco, the owner of those trailer parks — and much of the rest of lakeshore property from the City Pier to Steamboat Landing — has announced a $140 million redevelopment plan that calls for clearing out all the trailers. His goal is to have the land ready by the end of next year for the residential and retail buildings along Lakeshore Drive.

This isn’t necessarily news to the tenants.

In August, Genecco sent tenants of the Red Jacket Mobile Home Park on Booth Street a letter that read, “If at some time plans are made to close (the park), you will be notified at least six months in advance.”

That six-month notice has not yet been given. But plenty of residents took the initiative to get out before that notice arrives.

More than 60 homes were parked on the lots of the two parks as recently as this past summer. Only 20 or so remain, says Genecco. Most homes have been relocated to the Canandaigua Mobile Home Park on Saltonstall Street in the city. Some tenants who abandoned their trailers moved to Brookside Apartments on Buffalo Street Extension in the town. Others who will keep their homes will go to Lakeview Mobile Home Park on East Lake Road, also in the town.

Town Code Enforcer Dan O’Bine said that no trailers have yet been moved to Lakeview, but applications for permits were recently acquired to move at least five homes there.

Then there were those folks who just didn’t make the cut. For whatever reason, some trailers could not meet the inspection minimums.

Before a trailer can even be considered for relocation, it has to be visited by a slew of inspectors: electrical, heating and cooling, structural engineer and city code.

“These are private homes, and over the years (the homeowners) have done things to them without permits,” said city Code Enforcer Steve Wade. “Now comes crunch time, and they are not going to get moved, they are going to get dismantled.”

And so fragments of the mashed skeletons and remnants of those homes that failed the tests still litter the parks. Genecco says the vacant trailers at the Lakeshore Drive site are stripped and hauled off as they are taken down. So there will be some trash here and there throughout the process.

There is no law that requires removal of the dismantled trailers, said Wade. They may become a nuisance, but it takes time to get the trailers taken apart.

“It’s a major undertaking what’s going on down there, so the city is giving him time to get it done,” he said. “I think he is making great progress. I tell people who call to complain Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

Most of the moves went off with nary a complaint, according to both Genecco and Wade. But not everyone found smooth sailing. Some folks have gone through a full-blown nightmare.

Former Red Jacket resident Kathy Potter insists that in the process of relocating her home to the park on Saltonstall Street, the movers smashed her kitchen windows, dented her trailer, took 10 days to switch on the electric and have yet to connect the water and sewer lines.

Her trailer was moved on Nov. 30. Potter says she is still unable to move in. Some water pipes have since burst and flooded her kitchen.

“As of today, I have no place to stay,” said Potter who is staying with her father at Red Jacket. “There are three of us in a one-bedroom trailer with a dog and three cats.”

Genecco says that Potter’s claims are simply not true. But Wade has not yet been called to give the trailer a final inspection so that Potter can get a certificate of occupancy. On the other hand, says Wade, a relocation takes time.

“It takes a day to dig, a day to pour the footings, a day to move the trailer and set in place the hold downs, the plumbing, the electrical,” said Wade. “It’s not something that happens overnight. Any construction project takes time.”